


and i hear your ship is comin' in (your tears a sea for me to swim)

by commonemergency



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-28 23:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13914513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonemergency/pseuds/commonemergency
Summary: It’s rebuilding after the storm that always seems like the worst part, but he’s learning that it isn’t.Or Phil runs Dan a bath.





	and i hear your ship is comin' in (your tears a sea for me to swim)

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to [**@quercussp**](https://quercussp.tumblr.com/) for the fic idea & for being kind. <3

Phil read once that people like to take baths for long periods of time because it substituted from lack of social warmth in their lives. When he read it, it made his heart drop in the kind of way where you discover something about your partner that you’ve always known all along but wished they told you themselves. He understands it now, better than he has before. He watches as Dan lays on the couch with his comfortable blanket that he loves so much, there’s a throw pillow in his arms and his eyes are peeled to the telly. It’s all white noise really. There’s things that they need to do but Phil put them on hold for at least a couple days. Real life doesn’t always work like this but sometimes you had to make it work, even if it meant breaking a few things in the process. 

Dan’s face contorts in a way, and Phil looks to the screen and it’s a goodbye scene from a movie he doesn’t recognise yet, and there’s a single tear streaming down Dan’s face that he probably doesn’t want Phil to see, because he quickly brushes it away and Phil understands. It’s the kind of beginning understanding when you’re learning a new language, there’s phrases that you’ve always known, and everything else is just starting to make sense where you feel confident in your knowledge, but there are things that are still unclear, a little bit muddy, and in the dark. 

Phil reaches over to place a hand on Dan’s feet, his hands gently squeezing his foot, as if it’s just to let him know that he was there. Dan doesn’t react to it, his face is passive. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. He knows that he hasn’t it in the way where he tosses back and forth, between being too hot, too cold, like he’s sick with a fever but sometimes that anxiety manifests into something else. 

He will never understand Dan’s kind of anxiety, but he can listen to it and watch it. Sometimes it’s playing the same sad song over and over again just to hear that one part that touches the soul. Sometimes it’s running his hands through his hair over and over again but it never being quite perfect. Sometimes it’s not eating, and forcing water down because it’s _something_. Dan’s fingers are torn around the edges from his nail and skin biting and tearing; he didn’t even realise that he was doing it until he bled. So Dan had done what he did best, which was grab a plaster and put it over the wound as quickly as it happened. 

Phil had gone to Boots to grab a chocolate for himself, he needed to get out of the house, and his motivation was chocolate and a starbucks coffee with an extra shot of espresso because it would be a long night. He had gone towards the hair and body products and found what he was looking for: a two pack of small bath bombs. He didn’t care the scent as long as it was colourful. He took it to the till and walked back to the flat. 

Dan was still watching the telly, but it looked like he had been crying. What he does sometimes is watch old movies, cartoons, movies that his parents used to love, movies that he used to watch with his brother, movies that made him sad, anything--just anything to feel something other than that numbness inside of him that sometimes masked as hidden rage. The best way Phil could describe Dan sometimes was like a ticking time bomb. He never knew if he’d explode or if it was a false alarm. ( _Maybe he needed to explode. Maybe sometimes that was the only way to heal, he didn’t know._ )

Phil walks to the couch and squats in front of Dan, his fingers reaching out to push back Dan’s hair, and he cups his face, staring at him, like he’s trying to communicate all the ‘ _i love you’s_ ’ that he’s ever said, praying that Dan will hear at least one of them. 

“Hey,” Phil says quietly, his thumb brushes his cheek and he can feel the wetness, which he gently caresses it away. 

_It hurt._ Phil wouldn’t lie. It hurt in a way that he didn’t know how to explain, because all Phil wanted to do was fight whatever war raged inside of Dan, but he couldn’t do that for him. He just had to wait, hoping that Dan would come home. He knew that he always did, but it didn’t stop it from hurting any less, because it was hard to love someone who didn’t always know how to love themselves. He was still learning, and that was the hopeful part, but learning came with a lot of bandages, and sometimes sticking the plaster on didn’t always work, but that was okay. 

“Hi,” Dan whispers back, maybe afraid that if he spoke higher it would break the bubble they were in. 

“Hi,” Phil says again, placing a kiss on his cheek. “I got you something, but you need to come with me.” 

Dan bites down on his bottom lip, taking a big breath like it’s the most demanding thing he’s ever done. ( _Some days, it is._ )

Phil has his bag of goodies and Dan’s hand and they’re walking up the stairs that suddenly feel like mountains, but they can do it. Together. Dan’s dressed in his most comfortable outfit but it needs to be washed which Phil will get to tonight or tomorrow. It’s rebuilding after the storm that always seems like the worst part, but he’s learning that it isn’t. It’s beautiful in it’s own way to watch the progress of something once before be something beautiful again. 

“It’s not a Lush bath bomb, but it’s a bath bomb.” Phil says as he turns the water on to a warm temperature that Dan’s body could easily get used to. Not too hot, not too cold but a good medium. He helps Dan undress and waits for him to get into the water before he puts the bath bomb in, it’s pink and it smells like roses, and supposed to make your soft skin, all the things that Dan needs right now. 

“It’s pink.” Dan says with a small smile, it doesn’t quite catch his eye but Phil takes it. 

“Yeah, your favourite colour.” Phil says with a laugh, running a hand through Dan’s hair again like his mother used to do when he was sad. He didn’t know why it always made him feel better, maybe it was just the fact that he was being loved on, it felt good having someone physically show that they loved you, even if it was as something as simple as running a hand through your hair. 

Phil gets up, and Dan reaches for his hand. 

Phil smiles briefly, “I’m just going to grab you a few friends.” 

His friends is two small ducks that have somehow made it in the move and today he’s glad for it. He sets them in the bath with Dan, who seems genuinely pleased by it, because he shakes his head in the way that he knows means, “ _Only Phil,_ ”

“Do you remember where we got these?” Phil reaches out to grab one of the small ducks to kiss the one that Dan’s holding. 

“No, I don’t remember.” 

*

Phil washes Dan’s hair, massaging the conditioner in and Dan’s eyes are closed, and there’s a peaceful look that’s on his face that Phil hasn’t seen in a while, and he thinks of it as a win. The bath time took an hour, Phil had been watching the clock for himself, thinking back to the article that he had read. 

He wraps Dan in a towel and lets him get ready for bed, leaving him alone for a couple of minutes, turning off all the lights that were on downstairs, the telly, and putting the half eaten food away in the fridge for later. When he goes back to their room Dan looks ready for bed. Phil _feels_ ready for bed, it had been an exhausting few days for the both of them and they still had a couple more to get through. Dan gets under the covers and Phil joins him, pulling Dan closer to him. 

He thinks of all the times that they’ve gone through this, all the times when they’ve fallen apart and how they’ve put themselves back together. It was hard, so, so hard sometimes it felt nearly impossible, but mistakes had to be made in order to grow, and it may take a while but they were getting there. So Phil holds onto him a little bit tighter tonight, because he can’t put the pieces back together for him but he can cheer him on and wait while he does it himself. 

“Thank you.” Dan says, his voice sounds far away because of the sleep that he’s lost that’s finally catching up to him. “Would bath again.” He says before he’s gone. 

Phil closes his eyes, taking Dan’s words to heart because that meant something, after the long silences and sleepless nights, tonight had meant something. Phil presses a kiss to his back, breathing in the scent that he’s grown to love over and over again, wanting to catch up with Dan in his sleep. 

It was the end of a day, with the promise of a new one. That was all he could ask for.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos appreciated!
> 
> talk to me on tumblr/twitter: **@nihilismdan.**


End file.
